The Power of Chazown Vision
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Today I would like to share with you a revelation the Father opened up to us as we were studying in the library one night. Since visions seem to be a common occurrence around here, we decided to dive into the Hebrew of that word and see if the Spirit would have any more to say about it. By the end of our four-hour study, we stood in front of the eight-foot white board that was now covered from one end to the other, completely amazed and in awe. Let’s begin with a well-known scripture that many are familiar with but may not know the real power of.
Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
This is one of the most popular verses in the Bible. Every preacher knows and has probably quoted it from the pulpit. Unfortunately, it is completely misquoted because that is only HALF of the verse. The rest of it is, “But happy is he who keeps the Torah.” I can see why it has been misquoted. No minister wants anyone asking the question “How can we be happy keeping something that you told us last week was bondage?” If you divorce the verse from its root, the word “vision” can mean anything you want it to mean. You can use it for the next building program, the new motto of the church, the next mission statement, etc. But when you put it back into its context, there is simply no way to get around the fact that the wisest man that ever lived, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is telling us that “vision” is connected to doing what God said to do: keeping His commandments. Right here, before we even break down the word, we see both sides of the “coin.” On one side we have vision, and on the other we have the keeping of the commandments. The two sides are intimately connected through the center spine of the coin: Yeshua, our Messiah, the One who mints both sides together beautifully. The “Old” Covenant and the “New” Covenant are really just ONE Covenant with two sides.
But what IS “vision“? What does it look like? How do you get it? I certainly don’t want to perish. Strap yourself in and ask the Father to open your eyes and give you “vision” to see what we are about to uncover.
In Hebrew, the main word for “vision” is “chazown” (Khaw-zone), Strong’s #2377. It means “sight, a dream, revelation, or oracle.” It appears 35 times in the Old Testament, not once before 1 Samuel and mostly in the books of the prophets. This is significant when you look up the first instance in 1 Samuel 3:1: “Now the boy Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. And the word of Yahweh was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” This first occurrence tells us the main meaning of the word is supernatural REVELATION. It is seeing with our spiritual eyes. The passage goes on to tell us that the high priest Eli had very bad eyesight so “that he could hardly see.” This is called a remez, a hint to something of greater importance. The physical is, in this case, a perfect picture of the spiritual. Eli had bad physical eyesight which was indicative of the bad eyesight he also had in the spiritual realm. The two were connected. Samuel would begin “seeing” in the spiritual realm when Yahweh visited him and called him to His service. He chose to do it by opening up his ability to receive “revelation” (chazown). Chazown is supernatural revelation. And in those days, it happened mostly through prophets. Without the prophets, the people would perish because they would have no one to keep their hands to the plow of Torah. The supernatural words of the prophets reminded the people of their duty to serve their King His way.
So now that we have a general idea of what it means, let’s break it down to its individual letters. Chazown is spelled chet, zion, vav, nun. This is not significant until we put it back into its original pictograph form. The pictograph was the first form of Hebrew where each letter was a picture, like hieroglyphics, and each had its own meaning. When you put together all the meanings, you can many times see far more than what is first on the surface.
Chet was originally a picture of a fence, a section of the fence that was around the sanctuary. This letter represents “the word of God, fence, or protection.” Zion was represented by a dagger and meant “to cut through something, to break something open, a sword (of the Spirit).” Vav is the third letter in God’s four-letter name of Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey. It is a picture of a nail that means “nail, to connect, to bind something to something else, to bridge.” The last letter is a nun. Nun is represented by what looks like: a seed with its sprout coming out of it, or even a sperm with its head and tail. It means “life, growth, a seed breaking forth, procreation.”
When you put all of that together, “chazown” means “the protective word of God that cuts through something and takes the nail and brings it to life!” And, of course, the “nail” is Yeshua! When someone has a vision, it is simply the rehema (Spirit-revealed) Word that cuts through our dimension and physical ability to understand and brings the physical Word (Yeshua) to LIFE! Without this happening, we would not understand many of the things that Yahweh is doing or plans to do in our earth realm. True vision is seeing from His perspective. It is being able to supernaturally see the revelations that He brings to our attention. The scriptures say that in the end days, the young people will see visions and the old will dream dreams. The frequency of supernatural visions and dreams will increase before the Messiah will come back. And it will be these visions that will guide us into the depth and true understanding of His Word. I can truly attest to this as the frequency of visions and dreams that are happening in here are bringing not only the Word alive, but are causing US to come alive like never before.
As we continued to study, meditate and press into this word, the Spirit revealed something else to me. I noticed that the four-lettered Hebrew word was split perfectly down the middle with two letters on the right (chet and zion) being both spiritual in nature and the two letters on the left (vav and nun) being physical in nature. On the right you have the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit that cuts through time and space to enter into our realm, and on the left you have a nail and a seed. So I drew a vertical line between the two set of letters, dividing the set on the left from the set on the right. Here we were, right back to our two-sided coin…again. Once again, the Spirit was revealing to us the same thing but in a different way. “Vision” was not just a supernatural revelation that comes from the mind of the Spirit. It finds itself in our reality. A vision brings a spiritual message to life in our physical understanding so that we can better perceive what the Creator desires from us, or the direction that He desires us to go, etc…The Spiritual side of the coin has a practical side, as well.
A word very closely related to chazown is chazah, spelled chet, zion, hey. In Paleo, the letter hey was a stick picture of a man with his hands in the air that meant “to behold or reveal or revelation,” So in its pictograph, chazah would mean “the Word that cuts or penetrates (our realm) to bring revelation.” In modern Hebrew, chazah is Strong’s #2372 and means “to gaze, to contemplate, to see or behold.” This gives us further insight that gazing intently, meditating deeply on His Word and His presence, being quiet before Him for an indefinite period of time is what allows us to receive revelation. I can personally attest to this. Some of the greatest revelations that I have received have been late at night when I start “gazing” into His eyes and meditating on what is happening around me and what He is doing, or thinking deeply about something I am struggling with and asking for revelation.
As you move down through the definitions in the Strong’s, you come to #2385, chaziyz, which means to “glare, a flash of lightning, a bright cloud.” Many times in scripture, when an angel arrived to give a message, a flash of light occurred and the recipient could not even look at them. Since God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all, it makes sense that when He shows up, light is the primary manifestation. Also, from a scientific perspective, every thought that we have that goes through our mind is an electrical charge that is made up of light. They have also recently discovered that there is not a single biological or chemical reaction that happens in our bodies that is not preceded by a transfer of light. And if that is not enough, they have also discovered that the entire universe is being held together by microscopic “strings” that are like fiber optic cables that are just transferring light from one place to another. The entire universe is being held together by LIGHT, the very essence of Yahweh! And because the “cutting or piercing through” is the piercing through the barrier that separates the spiritual from the physical and brings the spiritual thought into our physical brains, it is simply His “Light” from one of His “strings” that connects to our brain and voilà!, the “light bulb” comes on. This is why meditation is so important. When all other “light bulbs” are turned off and you are completely focused on Him, you have the greatest chance to receive.
One last thing to say about this. Going back to our launching verse to this study, Proverbs 29:18, where vision is connected to His Law. We have just established that in the Hebrew, “vision” is attached to the word “light.” So why is it attached to His Law? Take a look at the following scriptures:
Proverbs 6:23 “For the commandment is a lamp, and the Law is a light.”
Psalm 36:9 “For with You is the fountain of life. In Your light we see light.” We see correctly when we are in His Light, and it just told us that His Light is His Law.
Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Okay think about this for a second. To be in His Light, we must first be in alignment with His Law. Keeping the Law itself does not bring the Light. It puts you in alignment to receive the light into your inner man. Think of it this way: take a quarter and hold it with your thumb and index finger on the spine so that the heads is on the top and the tails is facing the floor. Now, pretend that the heads side is the Spirit side of the coin from which all revelation, vision, and light come and the tails side is the Law, works, obedience side from which our faith is practically worked out. Now, pretend the quarter is made of glass. The Light does not originate from the Law side of the coin. The Light comes from that which is above the Law and passes through the Law to all who are standing directly underneath it. It is like a skylight. When we keep His commandments we are standing under the “coin”/skylight. But that is only the first step. From there, we need to receive, by faith, the Light that is available for being in that alignment. The physical man just puts the spiritual man into the correct position to receive all that is in the treasure house of God. The more of His Word we know and apply, the more centered we are under the skylight, so to speak.
Continuing with our study on vision, the final word in the Hebrew group of words that are connected to the word “vision” (chazown) is none other than the word “chazak” (khaw-zak’), which is the word for “be strong, to fasten, to seize, strengthen, help, repair, fortify, bind, restrain or conquer.” When a man receives vision in his spirit man, it “strengthens, fortifies and helps” him to “be strong” so that he can truly “conquer” the enemy that is against him. This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:9, “We rejoice when we are weak, because that is when You are strong.” When the flesh decreases and is placed in a weak position, it calls out and relies on God alone. It is at this place where the soul (mind, will, and emotions of a man) bends its knee in defeat and the spirit of a man takes over and receives the power from on high. The inner man is activated through utter dependence on HIS Spirit.
Are you ready for the “aha” moment? THIS is why He MUST allow you to go through trials and tribulations. It is virtually the only time that we are UTTERLY DEPENDENT on Him. He is only concerned about one thing: growing your spirit so that it can house the “fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). He is trying to get you to be what you were before the fall, where the spirit of the man dominated the soul of the man, when the physical was led by the spiritual. We simply do not know how to feed our spirit man and live completely dependent on Him, so if we are ever to grow into the proper image that we are striving for, He MUST cause us to become dependent…and that dependence normally finds its way into us through trials. Why is my spirit soaring to new heights? Because of His brilliant military move of forcing me into a situation where I would utterly depend on Him DAILY!
In the end, we have discovered that His physical Word helps us see clearly in the physical. It is a light to our paths, helping us make wise decisions in the natural world we are navigating. But we have also discovered that in the same way the physical man is led and empowered by the physical Torah (instructions) of the Word, the inner man is also waiting for the Word to “cut through” and bring revelation and life, as well. And as much energy that we spend in getting under the skylight, we need to spend the same amount of energy sitting still under it in deep contemplation, asking the Spirit to fill our inner man with whatever He desires, so that both will grow at the same time.
I encourage each of you to take the time and really focus on looking into the eyes of your King. A wife loves for her husband to clear his schedule and his mind and just focus on her. How much more is the “Father of lights” awaiting His children to clear their schedules and everything on their minds and just look into His eyes and focus on Him in utter dependence? Maybe then we would find our breakthrough moment. Maybe then we would see clearly. Maybe then we would actually receive “vision” and our eyes would be opened to a whole other world.
Shalom,
Jim Staley